James Henry Breasted

James Henry Breasted ( born August 27, 1865 in Rockford, Illinois, † December 2, 1935 in New York) was an American Egyptologist and historian.

He studied pharmacy and Hebrew in Chicago. The degree in pharmacy in 1886 he made his study of Hebrew he finished in 1890. Afterwards, he went to Yale University to study under William Rainey Harper Semitic languages. Harper encouraged him to study Egyptology in Berlin, and promised to establish a professorship in Egyptology in Chicago for him on his return. The following year Breasted traveled to Berlin to study with Adolf Erman Egyptian, Arabic and Hebrew. There he was in 1894 a PhD and was thus the first American to a Dr. phil. received in Egyptology.

In 1894 he married a young American woman named Frances Hart, who he had met in Germany. On his honeymoon he first visited Egypt, where he was commissioned by Harper procure antiques for the University of Chicago and copy old inscriptions. There he attended among others some tombs at Tell el- Amarna and Deir el- Bahari. He noted that many previously published hieroglyphic inscriptions were inaccurate, and decided to re-publish all the inscriptions in Egypt.

Breasted was from 1894 lecturer and in 1905 professor of Egyptology and Oriental History at the University of Chicago. In 1901 he was appointed director of the Haskell Oriental Museum. In 1919 he founded with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and headed its archaeological exploration in Egypt. In 1923 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His focus was on the collection of inscriptions, which is why today Chicago is a center of epigraphy. On the way back from a trip to Egypt he died in 1935 of pneumonia.

Breasted coined the term Fertile Crescent ( " Fertile Crescent " ) for the area of Mesopotamia to the east coast of the Mediterranean. A significant contribution to an understanding of Europe Breasteds intellectual-historical development was his proof that the Bible-based morality had developed long before the so-called revelation as a measure of ancient Egyptian thought. In his book, The Dawn of Conscience, he showed that parts of the Old Testament were taken from Egyptian texts.

Writings (selection )

• The Battle of Kadesh. 1903 ( digitized ).
• A History of Egypt from the earliest times to the Persian conquest. 1905 ( digitized ).
• A history of the ancient Egyptians. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908 ( digitized ).
• Ancient records of Egypt. Historical documents from the earliest times to the Persian conquest. Vol I - V, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1906/ 07 (online).
• The Temples of Lower Nubia. In 1906.
• Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. 1912 ( digitized ).
• Ancient times: A history of the early world. 1916 ( digitized ).
• Survey of the Ancient World. 1919 ( digitized ).
• The Dawn of Conscience. , 1933.